


Again

by smartlions



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Amnesia, Episode 26 spoilers, Fix-It, Gen, POV Alternating, Some people?? Write fanfic?? To cope???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 19:50:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15274962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smartlions/pseuds/smartlions
Summary: He wakes. He is nothing. He has the whole world before him.Sometimes a curse can be a blessing as well.





	Again

He woke up, and he was lying on the ground. The sun was in his eyes, and he lifted his hand to shield them—a tattoo of a snake on the back of his palm. 

Peculiar. He didn’t know where it came from. 

Nearby, there were people, he could hear them arguing. From his vantage, he couldn’t see them. Didn’t know who he was looking for, even.

Who? Something about the thought made him realize. He didn’t know who they were, which was less strange then him not knowing who he was. 

Who is he? The snake on his hand stared at him with its cold red eye.  _ Who am I?  _

Empty. Just empty. 

He sat up slowly, his head swimming—echoing with nothing—and he looked down at the deaths of fabric that pooled around him as he moved. Under him, a silvery tapestry. 

The coat was a lot to take in. The symbols that adorned it were incomprehensible, utter nonsense. The white shirt underneath stuck to his chest, stained with dried blood.

Whoever he was, he’d bled a lot. But under the mess, he seemed fine now, at least. Though it was hard to tell, honestly, the entirety of his chest was a patchwork of thin white scars. Maybe that was where the blood had come from. 

Who’s blood? 

Beyond him, he could make out the voices and their words more clearly as the argument rose;

“—we can’t just leave him here!”

“What do you propose we do, then? It’s already been a day! We’re going to run out of time if we don’t move.”

“If we just leave him, he’s gone!”

“He’s already gone!”

He turned his head, and saw that he had been laying in the ditch of a road, at the bottom of a hill. There was a tree trunk not too far off, blocking the road, and beyond that, on the other side of the road, three figures stood. 

_ What happened to you?  _ He asked. Nothing answered. 

The two arguing were a man and a woman—the man was sitting, back turned to the road, and true to his word, did not seem interested in moving. The woman stood over him, gesticulating frustratedly, dark hair unraveling from where it was tied at the top of her head. Between them, a small, grey-clad figure darted around nervously. 

He didn’t know what to do. Nothing compelled him to move toward the argument—it was just what he did. 

The small figure saw him first, finger raised to point to him. 

The two were too engrossed in their bickering to notice until the small one tugged on the collar of the man’s coat and made him turn. 

The woman made a strangled sound, somewhere between a curse and a scream. 

The man’s jaw dropped.

Both their eyes were red-rimmed. Their cheeks were tear stained. They looked at him like they’d seen a ghost.

He felt like he might as well be one for all he knew.

\---

Mollymauk stumbled toward them awkwardly. Not like a reanimated corpse would, but rather like a foal taking its first few steps—floaty where they should have been heavy, too hard when they should have been soft, knees not sure, arms out for balance. 

Caleb snapped his book shut, as well as his mouth, and scrambled to his feet. Beau had clamped both her hands over her mouth now, perhaps trying to keep down a second scream. Nott was frozen, pointing. 

“Did you find a spell, Caleb?” She whispered. “Is that supposed to happen.”

No, it wasn’t, but he couldn’t make himself say it. Instead, just the tiefling’s name came forth. 

“Mollymauk?”

The purple tiefling cocked his head slightly, earrings and baubles swaying with the motion. There was still blood on his chin. There was still blood on his shirt. 

Caleb swallowed hard, and tried again, the words dry like cotton in his throat. “Mollymauk Tealeaf. Lucien?”

Molly frowned. “Is that me?”

\---

The strangers all exchanged looks. He couldn’t quite place their expressions. The little one still seemed like they were in shock, judging by the fact that they hadn’t blinked since noticing him at first. The woman was fighting back tears, but at the same time, she was angry, he thought. 

And the man looked like his heart was breaking. But he didn’t look surprised. 

“Who are you?” He asked. He knew that they knew who he was—Mollymauk or Lucien or Tealeaf, whoever owned those names.

The man answered, voice clear, and despite the pain in his face, his words betrayed nothing. “I am Caleb, she is Beauregard, and she is Nott. We know you.” 

The man’s expression hardened, blue eyes glancing again at his chest, where the dried blood stained his shirt. He corrected himself. “Knew you.”

He nodded, but he didn’t understand. Names told him nothing, his brain was quiet except for questions and blank spaces. He didn’t know how he fit, but these three were like a puzzle. “How did you get here?”

“We’re the Mighty Nein,” the small one—Nott—squeaked. 

“What’s left of it,” the woman added, bitterly. “So were you.”

Mollymauk. Tealeaf. Lucien. Mighty Nein. Caleb. Beauregard. Nott. You. What is left. What  _ is  _ left?

It all rang of nothing to him.

\---

“You know me,” Molly said. Not quite a question. Not quite a statement. 

It had happened to him again, Caleb realized, now certain. This time he had not had to dig himself out of a shallow grave, at least, but that was merely because they had not gotten to it yet. Caleb hadn’t been ready to leave him. He had to make sure there was nothing in his books first. Had to make sure that he didn’t lose someone this time. 

Small silver linings, he reminded himself. All things avoidable if he had just left the night before like he should have. 

Beau didn’t really want to leave, he knew. Unlike him. But she was the one who said they had to. 

Everything he knew about her rang true in that, though. Keep moving and the hurt can’t catch you. Even if you’re losing the only family you’ve ever really had. 

He kept pretending he didn’t hear her say it. That they were her family.

Some family they were. A man who kept almost leaving, and the girl he kept dragging along, who deserved so much better. Three people—good people—all gone now, at the hands of a man who just killed one of them. 

And now he was back from the dead, but he wasn’t himself anymore. 

He choked back his disappointment. He stepped forward, onto the road. 

He hoped he was going to do the right thing. 

“We know you as Mollymauk Tealeaf. You were travelling with the Fletching and Moondrop carnival when we met you. We helped with some trouble you all had, but you left with us in the end. And we were just a travelling group of assholes, but we helped save a village—we did some good. Sometimes.”

Mollymauk, or rather, the man who used to be Mollymauk’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand. Caleb pressed on. 

“Other things happened, but those are not so important right now. What you need to know is that we are on a job, and we were travelling between cities when three of our friends were lost to slavers. And we went after them. And those slavers killed you.” 

“But I’m back?” He said the words airly, as if commenting on the weather. 

“Ja. You are back.”

_ And I’m sorry _ , Caleb thought, though no one but him would know why, and it was too late for it to matter now. But what had been the too-colourful peacock was now an empty vessel. And he wished he hadn’t said that was a bad thing. 

***

It was two days of travel to Shady Creek Run, slow now that Keg had taken off ahead of them. She promised to meet them, but she was going to hide, lay low. 

She had seemed to carry the guilt of her new ally’s death heavily—the only one of the four she’d really taken a shine to, as well. 

Mollymauk had stopped talking not long after waking up. But he wasn’t catatonic, as Caleb had expected him to be. 

He was watching everything, carefully, and listening as well. 

They had split themselves between the two horses. Beau couldn’t promise Nott that she would be nice, so the two of them insisted Molly and Caleb ride on one. The girls on the other horse spent the majority of travel whispering to one another, nervous from the sounds of their conversation, though Caleb couldn’t parse the words. 

Behind him, Molly is staring wide-eyed at the world passing them. Above, Frumpkin, still an owl, keeps pace on the wind. 

Snow is starting to fall as they stop to make camp for the night. Beau sets the tent into place and insists she takes first watch. The whole time, as the crew settles in, she watches Mollymauk carefully. 

He is staring straight up at the sky, watching the snowflakes fall. 

\---

Nott wakes Caleb up for third post, shaking his shoulder until he wakes. Beside him, Beau is snoring. Mollymauk is not in the tent, though Caleb can’t remember if he ever was. 

As if reading his mind, Nott answers his unspoken question; “he’s outside by the fire. Still not talking. Kind of creepy.”

Caleb pats her on the head, and she smiles just a little. “Has it been quiet?”

“Silent as the grave. Oh.” She winces at her own words. “I mean. Well. It’s just bad timing I suppose.”

He smiles gently as he sits up. “Get some rest, Nott.”

The switch places, and Caleb exits the tent to see the tiefling silhouetted against the small campfire. He doesn’t pay the wizard any mind as he walks past to take a seat on the opposite side of the pit, too entranced by the stars above. 

His voice cracks as he speaks for the first time all day. “I feel like I should know all these stars off by heart. Or, at least, I feel like I should feel like I know them.”

Caleb considered him for a moment, choosing his words carefully—“it’s good to see that even death does not change the way you think.”

“Did I speak about the stars often?”

Caleb shrugged. “You could say they were an interest of yours. But moreso I meant you’ve always been cryptic and strange.” He quickly added, “it’s part of your charm.”

“Charm.” The man repeated the word quietly, as if hearing it for the first time. Which Caleb supposed he just had. 

He changed the subject, hoping to keep the man from drifting into his own head for just a moment longer. “What should we call you?”

Pain flashed through the tiefling’s crimson eyes, an expression Caley wasn't sure he’d ever seen on Mollymauk’s face before, but it passed as quickly as it came. “You can call me whatever you like. Mollymauk seems to suit you.”

“It suits you as well,” Caleb said quietly, more to himself than anything. 

“Mollymauk Tealeaf, was it? M.T. Ah,” he smiled up at the stars. “I get it.  _ Empty.  _ Did I come up with that?”

“Ja.”

“Clever.”

For an hour, Caleb lost Mollymauk to the world again. He was drawn back in by Frumpkin landing on his shoulder, fluffing out his wings as he settled.

“What a strange owl.”

“He’s usually a cat.”

Mollymauk laughed, and scratched under Frumpkin’s chin. “So strange.”

Silence again, unbroken until Molly spoke again; “What was I like.”

Caleb had to think before he answered. “You are kind, but difficult to place. I don’t think you knew who you were, still. But you were happy.”

“Are you?”

“What?”

“Happy?”

He couldn’t answer. Molly nodded.

“I don’t know for sure, but I feel like you don’t know who you are, either. Am I right?”

Caleb shrugged. “I used to know who I am.”

“I think I used to, as well.”

The conversation, thankfully, halted there, and the night passed uneventfully, Mollymauk falling back into silence as he continued to stare, Frumpkin occasionally pestering him for another scratch. Eventually, the sun rose, long with Beau and Nott, and things started to be put away, Beau shoving the tent into the Haversack, Nott snuffing out the embers in the firepit, and Caleb getting water for the horses.

He willed Frumpkin to stay with Mollymauk until they were back on the road.

***

Caleb took the last post again the next night, and once more filled the silence of the open air by muttering to himself.

Once more, everyone was asleep and he knew he should go.

“They’re just going to keep dying, and it’s going to keep being your fault. And you don’t even know them! You don’t know them and they’re going to die because you’re too weak to stop it.” 

He drew in the dirt with his finger, a plan for making his escape. He’d leave them the horses and go on foot. He had everything he needed with him anyway. And he’d go east and make his way.

He hadn’t been on his own since before prison, he realised. It’d been a long time.

“I can make it on my own,” he said, Frumpkin bobbing his head in what Caleb decided was agreement. Then he repeated it again, to convince himself it was true. “I can make it on my own.”

“You’re leaving?”

Caleb whirled around, finding Mollymauk had somehow managed to sneak up on him. He froze, and the man stared at him, and his voice was strained as he asked—

“Why?”

“Because,” Caleb started, his words a lump in his throat. “Because you are all in danger because of me.”

The man just stared at him, confused. “But you said your—our—friends, they’re in trouble already. And we have to save them?”

“Trying to do the right thing has already gotten you killed.” Caleb’s fist was clenched so hard it was shaking. “And I couldn’t do anything.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t, then. You don’t need to worry about it.” Caleb motioned for Frumpkin to come over, the owl hopping down from the tree onto his shoulder. “You three will find something better. Help the Gentleman, then make lives for yourselves. I am only going to bring pain.”

Molly stepped forward and Caleb flinched back. “But we need you.”

“You don’t.”

He stepped forward again, and had grabbed Caleb’s arm. “I do.”

“Mollymauk, please.”

“You don’t understand, I don’t know anything, except that I know who you are, and who they are. And I need you. You know me.”

Caleb shook his head. “They know you, too.”

“Not like you—you and I are the same, remember. We both used to know who we were.”

Caleb shook his head again. “I can’t help you.”

“Please,” Molly’s grip on his arm loosened, instead his fingers wrapping around Caleb’s trembling fist. “Try. I need someone to try.”

\---

Caleb woke up to the sun rising over the treetops, his back against the rough bark of a tree. Ten feet ahead of him was the tent. Beside him, under his head, was Mollymauk’s shoulder.

The girls began to rouse and break down camp. Caleb stayed.

They mounted the horses and prepared to make the last few hours stretch to Shady Creek Run. Caleb stayed.

The whole way, while the girls rode ahead, he told Mollymauk the story of who he was to Caleb Widogast and the Mighty Nein.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Sorry but you literally could not pay me enough to accept the events of episode 26 as set in stone.  
> I didn’t sleep so I could write this, I hope it helps soften the blow a little. I hope it also explains the disjointedness haha.


End file.
